Background: The setting for the television show "Northern Exposure" (1990-1995), it was a small, isolated town on the edge of the vast and empty Alaskan wilderness.

Why we love it: Cicely was a community, in the full sense of the word, filled with lovable Alaskan eccentrics - a Ross Perot-like former astronaut, a debutante bush pilot, a sexagenarian babe magnet, an ex-con disc jockey who quoted Whitman and Tolstoy - all put there apparently to try the patience of Dr. Joel Fleischman, a neurotic transplant from New York City.

Real-world counterpart: It's based on Talkeetna, a town on the rail line between Anchorage and Denali National Park, with plenty of its own quirks - among them the Talkeetna Moose Dropping Festival each July, when residents and visitors wager on numbered pieces of moose dung dropped onto a target from a helicopter; and the Wilderness Woman Contest in December, organized by the Talkeetna Bachelor Society, in which local females compete by hauling firewood, harnessing a sled dog team and shooting a moose.

But "Northern Exposure" fans are more likely to make a pilgrimage to Roslyn, Wash., a one-time coal-mining town where exterior scenes for the series were filmed. Each summer it's home to Moosefest, a gathering of "Northern Exposure" fans from around the world (www.moosefest.org).

Trivia: The Brick, the bar and cafe owned by Holling and Shelly in the TV show, actually exists in Roslyn. It's said to be the state's oldest tavern operating continuously under the same name.